


Of "Ostrich Eggs" and Smeared Skin

by Ididntsignupforthisshit (myhamartia)



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, David "Mom Friend" Jacobs, First Meetings, M/M, So is Jack, They're so cute they're practically married and it's Gross, Uhm, Utterly Cute And Domestic Javid, but like, they're the equivalent of an old lesbian couple trust me, touch your soulmate and the black stain on their skin gets colorful au, yippee :)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 06:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12270678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myhamartia/pseuds/Ididntsignupforthisshit
Summary: It was a rainy Thursday when Race found his soulmate.Wherein Race Higgins finds his soulmate, gets a concussion, and invokes the wrath of David "Mom Friend" Jacobs. All in one day, too.Damn,is he talented.-This was inspired by ftwnhgn's Javid au:Over Time. (Covered in the colours). it's so cute yo go read it





	Of "Ostrich Eggs" and Smeared Skin

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Over Time. (Covered in the colours)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11147397) by [ftwnhgn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ftwnhgn/pseuds/ftwnhgn). 



         If there was one thing Race could tell from his alarm sounding at six thirty, it would be that it was going to be an extraordinarily dry day.

    "Dry" as in dull, that is. A Thursday with all classes canceled. A Thursday off when everyone else working meant no one to hang out with. A Thursday where the ground outside was standing in water from what seemed to be days upon days of non-stop rain.

    He was tempted to just lie in bed all day, almost gave into the notion - but his plan was thwarted right away when he remembered that he let his laptop die last night in the living room, and that the cable to his nearly dead phone was across the room, plugged in under his desk.

    Now that he thought about it, everything he could have used to entertain himself was either across the room, or further away in the apartment. Which meant that he would have to get out of bed for them.

    Leaving the cocoon of sleep-warmed sheets and quilts wasn't something he fancied, but it was looking like that was the only option.

     _Well..._

    He could always text David and ask him to bring him the things.

    Nah. 'Cause on the off chance that he wasn't already up, he would still be in bed with Jack. And David is the kind type to help others out, even when they're being lazy little shits like Race was.

    And then Jack would whine, bitch and moan to get David back in bed and be in a hissy mood for the rest of the day towards Race.

    Maybe it was just Race, but he didn't wanna hear that shit.

    With that thought, Race flung off his covers. He shivered at the rush of cold air hitting his body and contemplated burrowing back down, even though he knew that the warmth wouldn't be the same.

    He rolled out of bed with a little whine, his feet hit the carpet with a heaviness that only came with becoming reacquainted to your body after sleep.

    He could hear faint voices from outside his room and Race was glad he didn't risk texting David. If he would have known of Race's plot, Jack would have stomped right into his room, tearing covers off of him and kicked his ass right out of bed.

    Race stumbled out of his bedroom and down the hall to the living room. The living area was big, taking up most of their apartment. It bled into the kitchen, only separating from the living room via a bar stretching across the room and an open doorway.

    Race shot a dirty look to his laptop that sat innocently on the floor, half tucked under the couch.

    Sure enough, like he had expected, David and Jack were in the kitchen, bustling around as David made breakfast, Jack taking care of the coffee.

    Some Spotify radio was playing from Jack's phone at a quiet volume, giving the room a pleasant air to go with the duo's smiles and glances.

    "Mornin' all," Race said. His voice sounded a lot more cheery than he felt, projecting the last of his soul into his voice. It was like _Customer Service Voice: Morning Edition._

    Jack nearly spilled a his scoop of ground coffee, but caught himself just in time. He grinned waved good morning at his roommate as best as he could, given his full hands. "Racer!" he said, voice full of surprise. "Thought you'd sleep in today."

    "I forgot to shut my alarm off last night," he admitted.

    "Did you sleep well?" David asked, looking at his briefly from the stove.

    Race shrugged a shoulder. He busied himself with a glass of orange juice, constantly looking over David's shoulders to the stove range. There was a serving platter mounted with turkey bacon, eggs and a small stack of pancakes to the side. David was finishing out the pancake batter, four pancakes on the stove-top griddle at a time. "It was alright. Kept up most of the night with a paper. Barely got to bed."

    Jack patted his shoulder in sympathy as he scooted past him to get to an outlet to plug his percolator into.

    "Got any big plans today?" Jack asked, spinning around and leaning against the cabinet, his hands braced on the counter behind him.

    "Not really, _Mom,_ " Race said, snorting at his own well-used joke.

    "Ah, shut up," Jack sniffed, boping Racer over the head before crossing his arms over his chest.

    David slapped Race's hand away as he tried to sneak a piece of bacon.

    "Give it a minute and it'll all be done," David told him.

    Race sighed dramatically. " _Fine_ ." He turned around to mirror Jack's pose, though he was much more sunk in on himself. He yawned loudly, his eyes squeezing shut. He cursed, his voice muddled with the yawn. "I'm _so_ going back to bed after this."

    "You could go to bed now, let us eat all this," Jack hummed.

    Race grinned at Jack, while David scolded him. "If I did that, I wouldn't be an inconvenience. And I ain't nothing if not an inconvenience." All snark.

    "You are _not_ ," David protested. He shut off the stove and added his pancakes to the stack. "Now go sit down. Jack, grab the plates."

    Jack made a little whining sound and tore himself away from the counter to gather the plates from the dish drainer by the sink.

    Race grabbed the silverware from a drawer next to the fridge and set them out on the table.

    They ate breakfast in peace, cheerful conversation between them. Race gave his compliments to David generously, Jack only seconds behind him.

    After he was done, Jack leaned his chair back, looking out the window behind him at the constant rainfall. "God. I've got so much stuff I need to get to the studio today, and now I gotta do it in the _rain_." David pointed out that there wouldn't be any problem taking the boxes in the rain, especially since they would be dry the entire time, basically transporting them from one underground parking garage to another. No walking in the rain necessary.

    "It's the principle of it," Jack griped. He stretched his arms up and over his head, groaning lowly. He rolled his shoulder so that Race got a glimpse of the baby blue mark on the area between his neck and shoulder. His soulmark - the first place David ever willingly touched him. There was a matching mark on Jack's ribs, telling of where David put himself between a fight between Jack and some schmuck that had picked a fight with Jack.

    David's marks, on the other hand, were on his shoulders and partly down his chest. A splattering of color, forest greens and bright yellows with touches of deep violet ran down his side, down his hip to the inside of his knee. Jack was a very physical person. The first time he had touched David, he wrapped his arms around him from the back, wrapping himself around David like a sloth or a baby koala.

    Race frowned involuntarily, thinking about his own premature soulmark. It was a smear, a smattering of deep gray spread from under his jaw, faintly tracing to his chin. He scrubbed at it subconsciously  and tried to put himself back in the conversation.

    "I'll help with your stuff," he said suddenly. He shoved a full, syrup dripping pancake in his mouth, and Jack looked at him in surprise.

    "You sure?" he asked. "You don't have to. It's your day off, after all."

    "No, I'll help. When do you wanna leave?"

    Jack shrugged. "'Round eight, I guess."

    "Alright," Race said, licking his fingers clean of syrup before standing up and washing his plate in the sink. "I'm gonna go shower, then."

        They left a quarter to nine. David helped them cart some of the full boxes down the elevator to Jack's car, below in the parking garage.

    Race, with his backpack strung over his shoulders, climbed into Jack's Jeep with the man himself, and they started their trek across Manhattan to Jack's art studio.

    The rain was fierce, and Jack was almost afraid that they would have to turn around back home. David called Jack halfway through their drive to tell him that quite a lot of his students had stayed home for the day, safe from the rain and potential flooding.

    Even so, Jack and Race arrived safely to the building the studio was housed in. They pulled into the parking garage and Jack found his parking spot with ease. They popped the trunk and looked inside at the heavy collection of boxes.

    "Do you have a dolley?" Race asked, not wanting to haul every individual box up to the sixth floor. He was beginning to regret signing himself up for this nonsense.

    Jack nodded at his question. "Yeah, I do. I was just thinking the same thing. I'll go grab it." He clapped his hand on Race's shoulder and turned to hurry to the elevator.

    Five minutes into waiting, and Race was getting antsy. He hummed to himself carelessly, with his hands shoved deep into his pockets, curled around his fifteen-percent phone. His toe tapped to the tune he hummed, and soon he was dancing out a rhythm, the soft tapping noise ricocheting off the concrete walls.

    He didn't notice the water on the ground, as he looked around the garage. He saw a short man piling out of his car, pulling a messenger bag over his shoulder and fixing his a Dodgers cap on his head. The boy looked at him and caught Race's eye and Race grinned at him. He tapped out a complicated step and waggled his eyebrows, the question, " _Impressed_?" was implied.

    The boy snorted, smiling to himself as he continued to gather his things out of his car.

    Race sighed, still tapping. He went for a few more beats, his humming leveled out until his footing slipped and he was flying backwards, shouting out a spike of profanities before the back of his head cracked on the concrete.

    He thinks he must have screamed, yelped, or made some sort of noise, but he most certainly blacked out for a second. All he could think of was the blinding pain starting in the back of his skull, spreading to his eyes. It was bright red and blinking and _God_ ! It fucking _hurt_!

    He curled up into a ball on the cold floor, faintly aware of the water seeping into his shirt, and the sound reverberating through the garage, and the hands cupping his face, a voice asking if he was okay.

    All he could focus on was the pain. He didn't tear up, but he did moan and clutch as near to the bump as he dared, his legs kicking out as he tried to deal with the pounding.

    "Hey. Hey! Look at me. C'mon, man."

    Race groaned, voice high in pitch but he pried his eyes up and looked up at the man kneeling next to him. He blinked blearily, head still _pounding_. "What the fuck?" was the only thing he could choke out.

    "You were being a dumbass and you slipped," the man informed him.

    Race snorted before wincing dramatically. "Well, whatever happened to romance?"

    "I don't know anything about that," he said. He took hold of Race's hands and got into a crouched position. "Think you can stand?"

    Race nodded his head. "I can try," he said. He pushed himself up with his free hand and pulled himself up with the man. Once he stood, he stumbled a step, his hands going out to balance him. "Fuck, did my head, like, _explode_ , or something?"

    The man looked him over, ducking behind him to look at the back of his head. "You look like you hit it real good, but I don't know about any explosion." Deft fingers felt around Race's wound and the guy hissed through his teeth. Actually, Race wasn't sure if it was him, or the other guy because it sounded a lot like something he would do at the moment. "You got a goose egg," The man told him gravely.

    "Feels like an _ostrich_ egg."

    The man laughed and Race decided that he really liked that sound.

    "Hey, come here outta that puddle." He grabbed hold of Race's arm and carefully led him out of the standing water. "We probably oughta get you to an emergency room."

    "Well, Christ. At least buy me dinner first." Race grinned lazily, trying not to move too much for fear of disturbing the pain in his head and magnifying it.

    "Yeah. Right. Romance and all that shit." The guy laughed and Race smiled along. "Name's Spot Conlon," he said, offering out his hand.

    Race clapped him on the shoulder and took his hand. The hand on his shoulder dragged down his arm to clasp at his wrist. "Race Higgins." He paused for six whole seconds, and Spot looked at him warily, eyebrows raised. "Shit. Where's my phone? I gotta call Jack."

         It was a rainy Thursday in August that Race Higgins found his soulmate.

    It took the full duration of the hospital visit for the color to finally develop. It slowly seeped into Race's skin after a phone call had Jack rushing him to the hospital. Spot had insisted in coming along, seemingly interested in Race's wellbeing.

    Through half an hour of nerve-wracking driving, in which Jack had tried to call David, but the frustration had him chucking his phone to Spot and demanding that he call _"Davey! The one with like eight different colored hearts after it."_

    Spot had to redial the number four times before Jack dictated a text for Spot to send to him. It consisted of a lot of _‘damn’_ s, from what Race heard. It was only a little while until David called, himself.

    On the speakerphone, David sounded apprehensive, asking many questions from the hallway outside of his classroom. He said he would be at the hospital as soon as he could, and that was the end of the call.

    "You shouldn't've called him," Race objected. "Now he's gonna worry and shit."

    "He's got a fucking right to, when you're over there getting real _familiar_ with the floor," Jack snapped.

    Race scoffed, waving him off.

    To Race, it seemed the hospital wait was a long one, so was Race's time with the doctor, even if only diagnosed with a mild concussion.

    Race lied on the hospital emergency room bed for a while after the doctor left, cleared to go, but needing to rest for just a minute.

    Jack stepped out to call David, leaving Spot and Race along in the little curtain-walled space. Race looked Spot over properly for the first time. He noted how short he was, and the shaggy hair sticking up out of his well-worn ball cap. He watched as Spot looked from the floor, to the curtains, to Race, and then all over again, looking dramatically out of place.

    "You know," Race started, his mouth twisting off to the side, "this is sorta your fault."

    Spot frowned, puffed out his chest. "How'd you figure _that_?" he demanded.

    "If I wasn't tryna impress you, I wouldn't have fallen." The statement was a-matter-of-fact and was obviously not to be disputed.

    "Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn't have been trying to impress me," Spot returned. He tugged on his right sleeve, dragging the material down over his knuckles. Race wondered if it stretched so easily because Spot's arms were short, or if the sleeves were just used to the motion by now and stretch easily.

    "Then maybe you shouldn't be so cute!" Race said, jostling himself on the bed, tilting towards Spot with a devilish grin on his face.

Spot didn't say much after that. In fact, he wouldn't even look Race in the eyes, instead slightly lower, like at his chin, or collarbone. Race backed off a bit at the lack of reaction, batting the _gay/straight_ possibility of this man. He couldn't get a read off of him. Maybe his head was just foggy, or maybe it was the fact that Race couldn't get over the face that he didn't know _what_ Spot was staring at.

    "Christ," he muttered. "Is there something on my face?" He scrubbed at his cheek with the back of his hand, checking to see if there was any residual dirt or muck from the garage floor.

    "No," Spot exclaimed. "You just - _your face_."

    Race's nose crinkled in confusion. "What about it?" he pressed.

    Spot came near and leaned a knee on the bed. He lifted up his hands, and his face was open and cautious. Race caught a glimpse of crimson on Spot's right hand(bigger than an ink blot and much too erratic for a tattoo, he figured), and he felt his chest get heavy with the realization that Spot has a _soulmate_. "Can I?"

    He shook off the worry, and the implications and looked back to Spot's face. "Y-Yeah, I guess. Go ahead."

    Spot's hands were slow, giving Race more than enough time to move away. He cupped Race's cheeks, his thumbs sweeping along Race's cheekbones. It was perfectly where Race knew his soulmark to be.

    "It's orange."

    Spot's hands were warm. Race's heart thumped, and he knew that his face was getting redder by the second.

    "What's yours?" he asked dumbly. Spot leaned back, letting go of Race's face almost reluctantly. He pushed up his right sleeve, showcasing a watercolor-like stain blotching over Spot's skin in red.

    "It goes up my shoulder," Spot told him. "It looks all washed out, which I thought was kinda funny, on account of the rain and such."

    "Does mine look like that, too?" Race asked curiously.

    Spot's head bobbed in a nod. "Yeah. Looks just like paint. It's yellow, and red, and most of it's oranged, where my palms were, right? It's really pretty, if you don't mind me saying so."

    Race grinned at Spot's rambles.

    "You make it sound pretty neat," he said.

    Spot shrugged, looking weirdly bashful. "I probably didn't even do it justice," he admitted.

    Before Race could give his reply, his ears picked up on a very distinct pattern of footsteps nearing Race's little haven among the curtains. It was the gait of a man on a mission, a man who could balance the tempers of 15 preschool children at once. A man who could herd a bunch of drunk twenty-somethings expertly.

    David Isaac Jacobs marched right past Race's section, Jack a half a pace behind him.

    "No, Dave, babe, this one," Jack said, pulling a David's elbow until they came back to the right section.

    David didn't look amused with Race.

   _"Antonio Nicholas Higgins."_

    It was a rainy Thursday when Race found his soulmate.

    It was also the day that his roommate and commonly claimed "Mom Friend" actually grounded Race Higgins, a twenty-three year old man.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys!!! I hoped you like this.
> 
> I've just recently gotten into the Newsies fandom and so far I Fucking love it. I'm working on a lot of fics - most with a very large range - so please stay tuned for them!!
> 
> I have indeed began an entire doc just for AUs and scraps and it's over 10K as of yet. so. This is gonna be good.
> 
>  _Please_ drop me a comment! Also drop by my [tumblr](https://itsnewstome.tumblr.com)!


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